At the Stars
by Caidreabh
Summary: After the evidence in a case is thrown out by the courts, Sara and Grissom deal with the feeling of failure.


Title: At the Stars  
  
Author: Laura/Caidreabh  
  
Category: Songfic, Grissom/Sara Relationship  
  
Rating: PG. Nothing explicit, just implied.  
  
Summary: When you live your life based on the hard facts of science, what happens when you have to face your emotions?  
  
Disclaimer: CSI and all the characters in this story are property of Alliance Atlantis Productions and CBS. I'm only a fan who tries to write half as well as Anthony Zuiker and Ann Donahue.  
  
Author's notes: This fic was written quite late at night sometime last summer, after the song it's based on-At the Stars, by Better than Ezra-was stuck in my head all day. It's haunting and thought provoking, just like Grissom and Sara.  
  
----  
  
It was three in the morning. Grissom was driving and having a hard time paying attention to the road. It wasn't because he was tired-- he had been working graveyard for far too long for that-- but because it took too much effort to control his own frustration, ignore the yelling woman sitting next to him, and drive at the same time.  
  
He was confused. He wasn't sure of anything; what he was doing with his life, what purpose it all had, or even how he should refer to the woman with him in the car. His girlfriend? Coworker? Friend? All at the same time, and yet none, either-- something somewhere in between, something he couldn't name. And he hated it the fact that he couldn't describe it exactly. It was... unscientific. Against his nature.  
  
What would happen, he wondered, if I just kept driving and never looked back? Where would this car take me? Does it matter? All I know is the only place I don't want to be is the one place that I am; this city with the crime and death that I am helpless to stop... or even vindicate.  
  
"I hate this!" Sara echoed Grissom's thoughts with words. "We had him! We had him nailed. And they threw the case out anyway. I hate this! I hate the courts! I hate--"  
  
She paused a moment to stare out the window at the stars, which were barely visible due to the bright Vegas lights.  
  
"What are we doing?" she asked.  
  
"You were distraught, so I offered to drive you home early. We're heading towards your apartment," Grissom said, even though he knew that wasn't the answer she wanted.  
  
"No, I mean, look at us. Look at that," she said, staring intently at the stars. "What are we here for? What's the point?"  
  
Grissom glanced sideways at her, only slightly surprised that she had been thinking the same thing he had.  
  
"Don't take me home," she said, still looking out the window towards the sky. "Take me anywhere. I just never want to go back again."  
  
"Have you ever wondered where you would end up if you just started driving and didn't stop, didn't chart your course, just left it all to chance?"  
  
"No. Only more places with murder and crime." She was crying and beginning to raise her voice again.  
  
"Sara, are you mad because of what happened, because you weren't able to stop it, or because you're afraid is the only life you're ever going to know?"  
  
"Yes. Because of everything. Because of nothing. I don't know." She turned her head away from the window and towards Grissom. "I don't care."  
  
"This is who we are, Sara. We can't help the fact that we'd rather deal with the dead than with the living. We live by what we can prove, not what we can believe. We depend on science. But for all that it's considered fact, science is never going to be perfect. We're never going to be perfect. You're never going to solve every case, Sara. You want to find the solution to every problem, prove every theory... find every clue. But that's never going to happen." Grissom wasn't sure if he was really responding to Sara, or merely to his own thoughts. It didn't matter, though, because she was staring out the window again, and didn't respond.  
  
He took a deep breath, trying to relax-if she wasn't going to, he might as well. "It took me forever to understand that. I'm still learning."  
  
"Where are we going?" Sara asked, still looking out the window.  
  
He ignored her. "Look how quiet the road is. The people we're passing. How many cars have we passed, do you think?"  
  
"Fifteen. Twenty."  
  
"What do you think they're doing on the road? Do they have something to do, or are they just running from something like we are?"  
  
"It doesn't matter. They don't care about us. How could they ever understand what we do?" Sara said, too tied now to yell. "How would they ever care until one of them gets killed, or their mother, or sister, or best friend, and they end up in a body bag at Doc Robbins'?"  
  
"What we do isn't about recognition."  
  
"I don't need to hear that now! Not from you! I don't care. They don't understand. All I know is that life finally throws them a curve, something that they never thought would happen, something that only occurred on the news and in their nightmares, and then, only then, do they care about what we do."  
  
"We passed the turn for your apartment half an hour ago," was all Grissom had to say.  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"I don't know." He squinted at the road. "Maybe we should turn around. Maybe we should just turn around. We could still make it back to your place before dawn."  
  
"We could find a hotel."  
  
"We could just sleep in the car." Grissom took his eyes off the road just long enough to look at Sara.  
  
She shrunk down in her seat and tucked her chin down toward her shoulder. "I don't care. Just don't take me home. Please don't take me home."  
  
[the end] 


End file.
